Gillard's education push

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will pledge today to elevate the international standing of Australian schools so they rank among the top five systems in the world by 2025. The plan is part of the new school funding system her government intends to make law before the next election.

In the government's response to the Gonski review of school funding, Ms Gillard will announce a plan for an ''Australian Education Act'' to enshrine the new funding model, meaning an incoming Coalition government would have to repeal the law if it wanted to return to the present model, its preferred system.

''By 2025, Australia should be ranked as a top-five country in the world for the performance of our students in reading, science and mathematics and for providing our children with a high-quality and high-equity education system,'' Ms Gillard is expected to say in a speech setting up school funding as a key platform for the next election.

Pledge ... Julia Gillard will enshrine new education laws in response to the Gonski model which will also address the education of indigenous students. Photo: Tamara Voninski

Australian schools are ranked seventh on reading and science and 13th on maths.

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Ms Gillard will outline what she says are the three main deficiencies: that although four of the top five schooling systems in the world are in our region, Australia is not among them; that poor Australian children have disproportionately low educational performances; and that as a country we are ''failing'' indigenous students.

The review called for $5 billion in extra funding but the government has so far refused to detail how much money it will tip into the new system. It and the Coalition have promised that no school will lose money.

But the government, unlike the Coalition, is committed to the funding principle the Gonski report recommends, where a base amount for each student is topped up if the student is disadvantaged or disabled.

While Ms Gillard will argue today that the new model ''strips away all the old debates about private versus public'', in essence it means public schools will receive more funding because they educate more disadvantaged children than private schools do.

The present funding model, under which each school gets money based on the socio-economic background of its students, will expire next year. The new model will begin in 2014. At present, funding is indexed at about 6 per cent a year.

The transition to the new system will not be complete until 2020 and will depend on the co-operation of the states. The government has not said what indexation the funding will attract.

The NSW Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, said yesterday the states had a limited ability to raise revenue and would not support a new system unless the Commonwealth provided most of the extra cash.

''Any significant increase in schools funding has to be largely funded by the Commonwealth,'' Mr Piccoli said. ''That discussion hasn't begun. We are in a pretty tight situation as it is.''

The Commonwealth now provides 30 per cent of schools funding and states give the rest.